With museums and galleries now fully operational, there's a whole range of fascinating exhibitions to choose from this autumn, displaying everything from an authentic pharaoh's tomb to the contemporary street art of Budapest. Here are ten top suggestions!
1/10
Black Light
Canadian
photographer Margaret Watkins is best remembered for her innovative
contributions to advertising photography. A
successful career woman at
a time when it was a rarity,
she had her own studio in Greenwich Village in the 1920s and was
editor of a respected annual photography publication.
This
retrospective at the Mai Manó House, Black Light, shows 120 of her photographs, dating
between
1914-1939. Among them
are portraits and landscapes, still lives, street scenes and
commercial designs.
2/10
Budapest Street Archaeology
Two
decades of street art from around the Hungarian capital have been
collated for this exhibition,
introducing influential
Hungarian artists,
projects and artefacts. The aim is to familiarise children with
the latest
visual culture so
they might better appreciate and protect their
surroundings. Exhibiting artists include 0036Mark, Mihajlo
Kolodko and Rapa
73.
3/10
Cloaca, Canals and Closets
The cultural history of human waste is the subject of Cloaca, Canals and Closets, an exhibition so popular it's been extended until 9 January next year. Showing images and models of the equipment used to
facilitate this basic human function, Klóaka, Kanális, Klozet at the Kiscelli Museum floats the most fundamental of questions.
Were the Dark Ages really that dark? (Perhaps not, it turns out.) How
long have their been private bathrooms? And flush toilets?
4/10
Design Without Borders
The Design
Without Borders exhibition has
been a defining forum of Hungarian
artistic life for
many years. This time, in addition to works by more than 120
artists from 16
countries,
you can see aspirational creations with special attention to Slovenia
introducing its Made
in Slovenia - The Future of Living exhibition. The
main selection showcases renowned artists such as Finland’s Yrjö
Kukkapuro and Erja
Hirvi,
Spain’s Jamie
Hayón and Ross
Lovegrove from Wales.
5/10
The Discovery of the Pharaoh’s Tomb
Under
the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep II in about 1400 BC, the Egyptian
Empire was in its pomp, and the legendary ruler was buried in
suitable luxury. As cultures flourished and fell around
him, his body lay in almost undisturbed tranquillity until being discovered and excavated with great care by French
archaeologist Victor Loret in 1898. Centrepieced by the original tomb, this major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, The Discovery of
the Pharaoh’s Tomb, tells the story of this mighty ruler of Ancient Egypt – and how he
was found thousands of years later. Until
9 January 2022.
6/10
From Home Back Home
This
group exhibition at the Zsófi Faur Gallery on Bartók Béla út is
one of the most interesting in this year’s Photo Month.
This meeting of fine arts and literature runs until 5 November. The
dialogue revolves around the concept of home: what, how many of it
can it look like, what makes it the place where we live? Hungarian
writers have also reacted to the works created by Hungarian artists,
so images and text form a unity at one of the more unusual
exhibitions currently on show.
7/10
Layers of Contingency
One
of the outstanding events surrounding the Pilinszky
100 series, to
celebrate this post-war
poet,
is the exhibition Layers
of Contingency,
presenting his photographs at
the Műcsarnok.
Pilinszky began photography in 1965. He believed the camera was
great for forcing his user to be constantly open and present but he
also took photos to capture his travels
abroad,
the main focus of these 66 images. Subjects include sacred
buildings,
monuments and, in 1967, Swinging
London,
which offered Pilinszky
honesty and hope. His muse, Jutta
Scherrer,
was another inspiration. Pilinszky often referred to his poems as
images – some are also exhibited here.
8/10
The Szigetbecse Photos of André Kertész
Legendary Hungarian photographer André
Kertész was
long linked to the little community of Szigetbecse,
where spent his childhood years and later established his art,
vision and personality.
From here, he began his career that stretched over nearly eight
decades, making him famous around the world. Seventy
images selected
for the village by Kertész himself are now on display at the Capa
Center until 31 December.
9/10
Time Machine
This
exhibition at the Ludwig
Museum is
not about the science-fiction
possibility of time travel, but an analysis of the relationship
between time and art from
different perspectives. The displayed works reveal different aspects
of personal, artistic and historical time from the curator’s
personal point of view. The exhibition is introduced by works related
to time and its passing, as well as significant dates. The viewer
gets an insight into individual lives, family stories and the
intricate history of Central
and Eastern Europe,
as illustrated by family photos and diaries. It
opened on the Hungarian national holiday of 20 August 2021
and
closes just before New Year’s Day, 2023.
10/10
Truth in Semblance
The
last in a four-part series presenting contemporary German art at the
National Gallery, Truth in Semblance showcases the successful career
of Gerhard Richter, soon to celebrate his 90th birthday. Raised in
the Nazi era, this long-term resident of Cologne escaped to the West
from East Germany shortly before the building of the Berlin Wall.
This is the first time in Hungary that such a comprehensive
exhibition can be seen of his work, which deals with themes of
freedom, attachment and detachment. Gerhard
Richter can
be considered one of Germany’s
greatest living artists,
someone who lived through much of the turbulence of the 20th century.
The 3,000
works he
created are not easy to classify into different eras, his oeuvre
typified by the continuous blurring
of reality and appearance, capturing
a moment
and realising its disappearance,
and the relativity of specific historical periods, their transient
political and social systems.
Doubt and scepticism are the result. It runs until 14 November.
